Wisconsin in the Civil War

We're in the process of updating our website! Learn more about what that means and how you can help create history..

The Home Front and the Battle Front, 1861–1865

Frank L. Klement

A vivid chronological narrative of Wisconsin’s role in the Civil War, featuring material on each of the state’s 53 infantry regiments and explorations of the war's complex political, constitutional, and military history.

152 pages, 8.5 x 11, 81 b&w photos
Hardcover: $19.95 | ISBN: 978-0-87020-286-5
Ebook: $15.99 | ISBN: 978-0-87020-626-9
Publication Date: 9/15/1997

BUY

-

Front cover of Wisconsin in the Civil War

Description

Wisconsin, freshly minted as a new state in the Union and located hundreds of miles from the heart of the fighting, nonetheless played a crucial role in the events of the Civil War. More than 90,000 Wisconsinites enlisted to fight for the Union, joining infantry and cavalry regiments, light and heavy artillery units, and a sharpshooter company. Native Americans, free Blacks, and women also contributed to the war effort from the Badger State, both from the home front and on the battlefields.

The final book by Marquette University historian Frank L. Klement, this vivid narrative explores Wisconsin’s role in the pivotal event of American history. In this volume, Klement greatly expanded his original 1962 booklet on this topic, adding new material on each of Wisconsin’s 53 infantry regiments, political and constitutional issues, soldiers voting, women and the war, and Wisconsin’s Black soldiers.

Author Bio

Frank L. Klement was born in northeastern Wisconsin in 1905-“a country boy who grew up on the banks of the Embarrass River,” as he liked to say of himself. He did his undergraduate work at the Wisconsin State Teachers’ College in Stevens Point and taught in Beloit and in rural schools before coming to the University of Wisconsin in Madison, where he earned a master’s degree and a PhD in American history. After teaching briefly at Lake Forest College and at the Wisconsin State Teachers’ College in Eau Claire, he joined the history faculty at Marquette University, where he spent the balance of his long and fruitful career as teacher and historian. He was the author of nine books and more than fifty articles, all of them about the Civil War era. Among his best-known works are Copperheads in the Middle West, The Limits of Dissent: Clement L. Vallandigham and the Civil War, and Dark Lanterns: Secret Political Societies, Conspiracies and Treason Trials in the Civil War. Klement died in July 1994, shortly after putting the finishing touches on the manuscript for his final book, Wisconsin in the Civil War.